Owning your own food delivery app is amazing! You can deliver scrumptious delicacies to your customer at any place and anywhere. The idea of developing a food delivery app was not new, there are various online food delivery apps such as Postmates, Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash that have already elongated their way in the market.
Last year, the COVID- 19 outbreak has also led many entrepreneurs and business owners to take a chance in the lockdown situation to look for food delivery app development. But we must say that this pandemic has given a strong reason to consider the home deliveries and supply chain are the future. But wait, have you heard about the Digital Twin Technology in the Supply chain management? We shall discuss it later.
Back to the point! According to Statista, the online food delivery revenue is assumed to rise with an annual growth rate of 6.36% (CAGR 2021-2024) along with a projected market volume of US$182,327m by 2024.
Many cafes and bistro owners are planning to take their food business to the next level with their own food delivery app. However, we know it is not always easy to just start right away without understanding every factor of building an app such as its monetization, cost, features, and other related functionalities.
To cut the long story short, we are sharing the best specifications to develop a food app. For better understanding, we have included Uber Eats here with us to understand more about its background along with its successful strategies.
We suggest you read a bit about Uber Eats so that you can too understand how well its notion works and what ideas you can adopt from this amazing app.
What is Uber Eats & Its Business Model?
Uber Eats is a food delivery platform that helps its users to order online food from their favorite restaurants, cafe, or bistro. It owns a vast library of local restaurants for its users to order anything whenever they want. There are many other prominent or we can say UberEats competitors such as Postmates, Doordash, GrubHub, ChowNow, and so on.
Uber Eats is available on all platforms, i.e Android, iOS, and web versions. However, the process of ordering the food is the same. All you have to do is select the restaurant, pick the item and then check out. We have briefly shared the quick ways through which you can make an order, basically, Uber Eats is easy to navigate yet there are some simple ways through which you can control your hunger!
Note- Are you thinking about which mobile operating system will be best for your customized app? Make sure to learn the in-depth difference between Android or iOS.
- Log in to your Uber Eats account and use the search option at the bottom of the app. If you are logged in on the web page, search your favorite restaurant by name or any other specific dish.
- You will get two options, either to pick or to deliver the food. You can choose according to the requirements. Additionally, you can also set the filter as per the requirements such as dietary, price, delivery time, and so on.
- Additionally, you can also “start group order” by sharing the link with your friends and families. Later, they can add their item to the cart as a sole order on the same delivery location.
- Not only this, but you can also opt for food delivery at your convenience through its “Schedule for later” feature. This option is available on all platforms.
This is how you can order your favorite food across the Uber Eats platform, let’s look into the Uber Eats delivery fees and its order cancellation process. When you were following the above-mentioned method to order the food, you noticed the specific fee with the requested item. Some restaurants are charging a delivery fee and others are charging no fee under some certain amount of order. There are some other apps that have service fees linked with their app or webpage. This charge covers the cost between you and the food caterer or it also helps the driver to connect with you.
On the other hand, if you want to cancel the order, tap on the upcoming orders tab, and then there select the order that you want to cancel. You will get a feature of “Cancel”, make sure you are eligible to get a refund when you discard the order before the order is accepted by the restaurant.
The next step is to acknowledge the Uber Eats’ subscription program. This amazing platform offers a subscription program, Eats Pass and it is available for $10 per month. Basically, this subscription package waives the delivery charge and also gives you exclusive access to discounted prices on orders above $15.
This can be a good take for those users who are using UberEats regularly. You can also check more about this package from the website but you need to sign up for this program. Let’s talk about Uber Eats’ business model. It has been observed that this food delivery platform has awakened various food industry owners to either join or create their own platform with the help of on demand mobile app development companies. Uber Eats owns the traditional food delivery method by listing all the restaurants, cafes, and bistro in a single app and meanwhile handling the food order delivery.
However, Uber Eats doesn’t outsource any logistic network for fulfilling orders, instead, they use their own delivery option. As we said above, its application uses various customizing features that make the order process more convenient and easy. The best features are customized restaurant recommendations, an advanced search filter, personalized delivery details, and accurate order tracking through their in-built GPS tracking system.
We have also listed down the clear canvas of Uber Eats business model for clear understanding:
Customer Relationship: Effective customer service, promo codes, and discounts, social media connectivities.
Key Partners: Delivery Partners, Drivers, Restaurant Partners, and Payment Processors
Channels: App store, Social Media, Desktop, Smartphone, Support Partners
Customer Segments: Individual users ( working professionals, families) and Restaurants
Value Proposition: Fast delivery, existing clientele, global presence, clean algorithm, no concept of minimum order, utilizing Uber’s resources for two ways benefits
Chief Activities: Selecting the restaurant, placing the order, picking up the requested order, successful delivery of food order
Cost Arrangement: Marketing pattern, Technology advisory, drivers wages, discounts for Eats Pass
Chief Resource: Eatery Owners, Individuals who own their vehicles, costumes who want an online food
Revenue Generation: Order fee, delivery fee, marketing & advertising fee from the restaurant partners, commission fee from the eateries, revenue shares from the restaurant partners
In a nutshell, Uber Eats’s business model runs when the customer orders food online, the restaurant receives the request and confirms it. Delivery partner is assigned for that requested item and once the food is prepared, it gets picked up. Thus, the food is delivered to the doorstep! Eateries pay commission to Uber Eats on every order, while customers pay the delivery charge or the cancellation fee and drivers earn by making an on-time food delivery.
This is the business and revenue model that Uber Eats follows, you can get in touch with reliable IT consulting services company. Let’s jump into the next section through which you can have a clear understanding to build your own food delivery app.
Build Your Own App Like Uber Eats:
Every product, software, or application development requires a clear understanding regarding what type of software solution you want to introduce in the market trends. However, when you have stepped in to build a food delivery app like Uber Eats or DoorDash, make sure you follow all the below-mentioned components together.
To end this quest, we have shared a clear road map with some vital steps to follow to have the same successful venture.
Start With Market Research
This is the foremost step! Make sure you are penning down all the deeply research activities regarding the competitors, targeted audiences along the latest food trends. You can start your research analysis by questioning yourself about the services that you want to offer and what your competitors are offering. You can also take help from IT consultation services regarding the primary stage of app development.
It is also important to understand and acknowledge the targeted audience with clear answers. You can also write-down the features that you wish to add to your app to steal the spotlight, right? Change is part of success so make sure you are diversifying the services according to the online food industry. As we are talking about market research make sure you are also concentrating on Big Data Analytics too.
Select The Food Delivery Model
Basically, you can choose the two food delivery foods,i.e Order-Only Model (OOM) and Order & Delivery Model (ODM). Both of these patterns are different from each other we will tell you how! Let’s start with the difference in functionalities between them. OOM platform is responsible for accepting and then managing the requested food order, meanwhile, ODM then again manages orders according to their preference and then delivers to the customer.
OOM has no logistic support because the restaurant itself delivers the food and ODM owns the logistics guidance. The delivery is controlled by the food delivery channel. It is vital to understand the monetization value of these food delivery models. Hence, OOM counts the revenue by the commission fees of the partnered restaurants. On the other hand, ODM charges commission fees from the restaurants and also takes a delivery fee from the customers.
Deivery.com and Just Eat is the good example to cover the Order-Only Model and Deliveroo and DoorDash is from Order & Delivery Model.
Choosing the Right Features of Food Delivery App
Remember we said to start the process by market research? This is where your analysis comes into the spotlight by understanding the competitor’s services and features that they are offering. However, every business owner has their own set of ideas that they wish to implement in their on demand app development.
- Using The Right Technology Stack
Using the right technology for your food app development is important, as it is the foundation of your product that will give a seamless user experience. Therefore, you need a dedicated software development team for your food startup.
Yet, you can consider the below-mentioned technologies in the initial phase, rest assured the dedicated team will guide you through the process.
Web App Development: AngularJS or React. There are various reasons why business owners are choosing React Native for their mobile app development.
Mobile App Development: Kotlin (Android) and Swift (iOS). It has been observed that many people are confused about which language, Kotlin or Java. However, it depends on the project’s requirements.
Back-End Development: PHP language, if you are new to the programming language. Read this guide for a better understanding of the PHP Web Development Services
Databases: MySQL
Apart from this, there are various third-party services that you can use in food app development. For payment gateway, you can choose Braintree, PayPal, Square, and so on. For cloud platforms go with Amazon Web Services or Azure. Meanwhile, no one beats Google maps and Places when it comes to choosing the location services. For further services, we recommend staying connected with the dedicated team for better understanding.
Cost to Build An App As Uber Eats:
There are various factors that depend on the cost of an application. Such as its size, features, geographical locations, design, platform, and development team. It is important to consider all the features and functionalities to the development team to give you a cost estimation.
However, if you research deeply there are many freelancers or developers who are ready to build your app within $10k-$15k, but to build an app like Uber Eats requires proper attention and a keen eye to run in the long race. Additionally, these are the marketing traps that you must stay aware of. As said above there are various factors that affect the success and cost of app development including QA software testing services.
Not only this, but many business owners also want to introduce virtual assistance for better customer assistance and they are contacting chatbot development services. Yet again these components determine the cost of your app. However, we consider all the above-mentioned features, the estimated cost to build a thriving and robust food delivery app would be around $35,000 – $75,000.
Final Words
Food delivery app development was never easy before, but with the help of the right team and guidance, you can conquer the market with your product. Make sure to follow all the steps and discuss them with your team. Make sure to conduct the complete research and development before proceeding with the step.
